Junior Physicians in England to Stage Five Consecutive Day Strike Next Month
Doctors in the UK are preparing to stage a five consecutive day strike in November, due to disputes regarding pay and employment.
Walkout Information
The BMA announced that resident doctors will walk out for five consecutive days from November 14 at 7am to November 19 at 7am.
Resident doctors, who constitute nearly 50% of all doctors in the NHS, are proceeding with the strike after failed negotiations with the health department.
Reasons Behind the Strike
The chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee commented, “We did not want to reach this point. We have been negotiating for the past week with government, urging the health minister to resolve the crisis of unemployed physicians.”
“Our survey reveals 50% of second-year physicians in the UK are struggling to find jobs, their skills going to waste whilst millions of patients wait endlessly for treatment and hospital shifts go unfilled. This cannot continue.”
He continued, “We talked with the government in good faith, keen for the minister to see that a agreement including options to slowly restore the cuts to pay over several years, providing recent graduates a pay increase of just a pound an hour for the coming four years.”
“We hoped the authorities would see that our asks are not just reasonable but are in the best interests of the community and our those we treat and would also help prevent our physicians leaving the health service.”
About Resident Doctors
Resident doctors have anywhere up to eight years’ experience working as a hospital doctor, based on their field, or up to three years in primary care.
More details are expected shortly.
